UH Alumna Receives National Public Relations Professional Award

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) announced that Patrice Tanaka, CEO, creative director and co-founder of PT&Co. of New York City, is the winner of PRSA‘s 2002 Paul M. Lund Public Service Award.

Tanaka was born and raised in Hawaiʻi, is a 1970 graduate of Castle High School in Kaneohe, and graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1974.

The Paul M. Lund Public Service Award is presented to a PRSA member whose participation as a volunteer has increased the common good and reflected credit on the society. Tanaka is recognized for building a public relations agency specifically designed to be a positive workplace for employees and setting an example as a company that is committed to creating healthy, sustainable conditions.

Tanaka and her five partners founded PT&Co. in July 1990 upon completing a successful management buyback of the public relations firm from former parent company, Chiat/Day, Inc. Advertising. Over the past 12 years, Tanaka has led PT&Co. to become one of the nation‘s most well-respected independent PR firms. During that time, the agency has grown more than 850 percent, won more than 150 industry awards for its breakthrough public relations campaigns, been honored by Inside PR magazine as the "#1 Hot Creative Shop" in the country, and been saluted by Working Mother as one of "15 family-friendly workplaces in America."

Previously she was executive vice president & general manager of Jessica Dee Communications, the PR subsidiary of Chiat/Day, Inc. Advertising. Before moving to New York, she was the public relations director for the Hotel Intercontinental Maui from 1977-1979.

Tanaka serves as a trustee for the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, the Family Violence Prevention Fund and Asian Women in Business. She is the president of New York Women in Communications, a founding board member of the Council of PR Firms and sits on the Editorial Board of The Public Relations Strategist, the quarterly magazine of the Public Relations Society of America.

She will be honored during the Legends Luncheon on November 18 at PRSA‘s 2002 International Conference, "Public Relations: Interpreting a World of Change and Challenge," in San Francisco.

The Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa.org) is headquartered in New York City, and is the world‘s largest professional organization for public relations professionals, with nearly 20,000 members organized into 117 chapters nationwide who represent business and industry, counseling firms, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations.